Michigan's Lake St. Clair may be, acre for acre, the best warm-water fishery in America: the densest muskie population anywhere, smallmouth flats that win every national ranking, and walleye running the shipping channels. All of it minutes from Detroit.
Reports current for Friday, September 4
Live verdicts from this morning's reports.
The best smallmouth lake on Earth by many accounts, and the densest muskie water in North America.
Michigan's salmon-and-steel artery: Tippy Dam's runs and the Big Manistee's fly water.
The flies-only classic: wild steelhead, fall kings and Michigan's most storied trout water.
Michigan's workhorse river: steelhead under Grand Rapids' bridges, salmon at the Sixth Street ladder and walleye down the lower miles.
Michigan's year-round factory: steelhead through winter, a salmon September, resident trout summers and walleye springs below Croton Dam.
The walleye superhighway: 28 miles of international current where Lake Erie's millions run the spring gauntlet past the Motor City.
The UP's biggest inland water: walleye and jumbo perch in tannin-dark timber country, where the ice season is the social calendar.
The blue conveyor: the Great Lakes' clearest big river, pouring Huron into St. Clair with walleye, sturgeon and world-class bronze on the current seams.
Michigan's biggest inland water: a 20,000-acre weed bowl of walleye, pike and the Tip-Up Town winter festival that defines hard-water culture.
Lake Huron's walleye pantry: the bay that came back, where limit fishing over the weed flats replaced the collapse nobody forgot.
Michigan's southwest steelhead artery: fish ladders through two states, a summer-run bonus and Berrien County's year-round chrome.
Michigan's glass lake: spring-fed Caribbean clarity, lake trout in the deep basins and smelt schools that write the food chain.
Ludington's double lake: dune-dammed water where Michigan's pike prowl the bayous and the Big Sable feeds walleye through the pines.
The wild one: Michigan's egg-take river runs untouched gravel where steelhead genetics for half the Midwest begin.
The coho cradle: Michigan's first salmon river runs clear past the weir where the Great Lakes miracle began in 1966.
Benzie County’s conveyor of chrome: the Betsie runs kings in September, steelhead all winter, and quiet water in between.
Michigan’s Holy Waters: the Au Sable birthed Trout Unlimited, and its cedar-lined flies-only miles still fish like a sacrament.
Lake Michigan’s clearest arm: Grand Traverse Bay holds lake trout, salmon and smallmouth over sand so clear it looks tropical.
Michigan’s Caribbean: Torch Lake’s turquoise water is 300 feet deep and full of lake trout, smallmouth and whitefish.
Upper Peninsula trout water: the Escanaba runs brook and brown trout through iron country to Little Bay de Noc.
A UP steelhead river: the Manistique runs salmon, steelhead and pike to northern Lake Michigan.
A quiet UP trout stream: the Ford runs brook trout and smallmouth through hardwood country to Green Bay.
The river of the falls: the Tahquamenon runs tea-dark water past Michigan’s great waterfall to Whitefish Bay.
The Porcupine Mountains river: the Ontonagon runs steelhead and salmon into Lake Superior’s wild shore.
Green Bay’s northern arm: Little Bay de Noc is one of the Great Lakes’ premier walleye fisheries.
Michigan’s salmon highway: the Big Manistee runs chinook, steelhead and browns below Tippy Dam.
Northern Michigan’s deep blue: Charlevoix holds lake trout, smallmouth and salmon in seventeen miles of clear water.
Species activity across the state's covered waters. Peak of the year: October.
1 = slow, 5 = peak. Current month highlighted.
Seasonal surface curve for this state's dominant water type (estimated).
| Water | Type | County | Live gauge | Peak month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lake St. Clair | Lake | Wayne | modeled | May |
| Manistee River | River | Manistee | modeled | Jan |
| Pere Marquette River | River | Mason | USGS | Jan |
| Grand River | River | Kent | modeled | Jan |
| Muskegon River | River | Newaygo | USGS | Jan |
| Detroit River | River | Wayne | modeled | May |
| Lake Gogebic | Lake | Gogebic | modeled | Apr |
| St. Clair River | River | St. Clair | modeled | May |
| Houghton Lake | Lake | Roscommon | modeled | Apr |
| Saginaw Bay | Lake | Bay | modeled | Apr |
| St. Joseph River | River | Berrien | USGS | Jan |
| Higgins Lake | Lake | Roscommon | modeled | Apr |
| Hamlin Lake | Lake | Mason | modeled | Apr |
| Little Manistee River | River | Lake | modeled | Jan |
| Platte River | River | Benzie | USGS | Jan |
| Betsie River | River | Benzie | modeled | Jan |
| Au Sable River | River | Crawford | USGS | Apr |
| Grand Traverse Bay | Coastal | Grand Traverse | modeled | Apr |
| Torch Lake | Lake | Antrim | modeled | Apr |
| Escanaba River | River | Delta | modeled | Apr |
| Manistique River | River | Schoolcraft | modeled | Jan |
| Ford River | River | Delta | USGS | Apr |
| Tahquamenon River | River | Chippewa | USGS | Apr |
| Ontonagon River | River | Ontonagon | USGS | Jan |
| Little Bay de Noc | Coastal | Delta | modeled | Apr |
| Big Manistee River | River | Manistee | USGS | Jan |
| Lake Charlevoix | Lake | Charlevoix | modeled | Apr |
No state touches more Great Lakes water, and Michigan uses it: St. Clair's muskie-and-smallmouth factory, Erie's walleye share, Superior's lake trout, and salmon runs up the west-coast rivers each fall. Inland, 11,000 lakes cover everything from bluegill ponds to Torch Lake's depths, and the Au Sable's trout water is hallowed ground: the birthplace of Trout Unlimited.
May-June: everything spawns: walleye runs finish, smallmouth flood the flats, inland lakes turn on. Summer: St. Clair hits its stride and the big lakes troll. September-October: king and coho salmon fill the rivers from Manistee to the Pere Marquette. Winter: Michigan is an ice-fishing civilization: Saginaw Bay walleye, Houghton Lake shanty towns, and pike spearing traditions.
Shallow, clear, fertile water carpeted in grass: essentially one giant smallmouth flat, with 4-lb-average tournament bags and 100-fish days for those who drift and cover water.